With the help of China’s Zhurong Rover, scientists have found new evidence that there was an ocean on Mars billions of years ago, which was completely different from today’s dry and deserted Mars.
On Thursday, scientists said that Zhurong had started its mission by landing in the northern region of Mars in 2021. It has unearthed geological signals that point to the existence of an ancient coastline.
The rover analyzed rocks on the surface of Mars at a location called Utopia Planitia, a large plain located in the planet’s northern hemisphere.
Data collected by China’s Tianwen-1 orbiter, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and other robotic instruments, such as Zhurong, show that Mars once had an ocean, during a period when Mars was gradually becoming cooler and drier and Most of its atmosphere was gone.
According to the researchers, surface structures, such as troughs, sediment channels and mud volcano formations, point to a coastline, which also contained signs of shallow and deep marine environments.
Bo Wu, a planetary scientist at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, is the lead author of the study. “We estimate that Mars’ Utopia Planitia was flooded about 3.68 billion years ago,” he said.
At that time the surface of the ocean may have been frozen for a geologically short period of time.” Researchers say that this ocean ended about 3.42 billion years ago.
At the same time, Sergei Krasilnikov, co-author of the study and planetary scientist at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, said, “There was a huge amount of sediment in the water, which created a layered structure of deposits.” Sediment means scum or silt deposited under water or any other liquid substance.
Like Earth and the other planets in the Solar System, Mars was formed about 4.5 billion years ago. At the time when there was an ocean, Mars was turning from a hospitable planet to a dry planet.
Researcher Wu said, “The presence of an ancient ocean on Mars has been studied for decades, yet many questions remain. “These discoveries not only strengthen the theory of an ocean on Mars, but also open up discussion about its possible evolution.”
Scientists believe water is a vital ingredient for life, and the possibility of an ancient ocean suggests that microbial life may have once flourished on Mars. “Early in the history of Mars, when its atmosphere was denser and warmer, the chances for the survival of microbial life were higher,” Krasilnikov said.
The solar-powered Zhurong rover, named after the mythological Chinese fire god, landed on the surface of Mars in May 2021 using its six scientific instruments and went into hibernation mode in May 2022.
It was decommissioned after exceeding its scheduled mission life of three months. Researchers are deeply studying the water present on the surface of Mars and trying to understand whether this water may still be buried deep inside Mars.
Another study published in August, which used seismic data obtained by NASA’s InSight lander, indicated that there may be a vast reservoir of broken igneous rocks beneath the surface of Mars.
The post Shocking discovery by China’s rover: Billions of years ago there was a huge ocean on Mars, this is how it was revealed… appeared first on .